Part 93
Sitemap --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- - More interesting items/ideas for a BioShock Rapture MMORPG --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- - Part 93 --- --- --- ADAM Usage Dropping (BS1 time) ? : The Pheromone Control thing may have greatly lowered the need for the quantity of ADAM, as the fighting largely ended and the Splicers were calmed down. Hence, Fontaine Futuristics (Now relableled "Ryan Futuristics") was abandoned to Alex The Great, and the Little Sisters probably started unloading their ADAM at Ryan's other facilities. It is just like Fontaine, after poisoning the city into a psychotic mess, and after that was restablized, got Ryan killed off so no real recovery was possible (Ryan WOULD have tried to find a permanent solution to save HIS city...). --- --- --- Ivan Karlosky (Per The Novel) : "He continued to be loyal to Ryan even in the final days of the war when Ryan began hanging the bodies of traitors on the columns outside his office door in Hephaestus." Considering that most of the 'trophies' tried to assassinate Ryan, it hardly seems something that would 'even' be an issue with most Citizens. (Consider that Ryan is trying to communicate and get through to to Splicers about consequences -- any kind of subtlety wouldn't be overly effective). The game's plot really doesn't speak much for most of the Citizens loyalty to Ryan or to Rapture's Philosophy (But then we never hear about all the rest of the people there who probably agreed largely with Ryan's actions in destroying a murderous Anarchist/Terrorist who was threatening all their survival and freedoms.) - Something not apparent is that when Ryan as talking about his 'trophies' seemingly with glee, that he is actually talking TO (first) an invading outsider, and (second) to someone he MAY KNOW is Atlas's paw - so he could be aiming his venom at Atlas/Fontaine (for effect) : That it was just a matter of time before Atlas was on Ryan's traitor wall. --- --- --- ADAM BOUGHT AND SOLD : We saw lots of signs advertising the sale of Tonics and Plasmids (and "ADAM") outside (Through windows) on the buildings, so stores/shops did sell ADAM products (and various medical practices used them). Of course the vending machines meant that applying the Tonic/Plasmid had to be very simple (largely automatic), versus earlier more-manual application by specialists/practitioners. The Health Stations also apply some kind of ADAM product. --- --- --- Discounting Aspects of the BS2 Multi-Player Game : Why should Sinclair be giving weapons and Combat Plasmids to members of the other side (arming the Atlas's terrorist types does NOT really make sense when HE would be one of the first people they killed IF they won ...) Sinclair supposedly 'gave weapons to the customers' DURING the 'civil war' ( the two sides -- Ryan's and Atlas's as you see in the MP game). The whole "Home Defence Products" was for all the people who were wanting to protect themselves from Atlas's terrorists ("lining up for Plasmids around the block" as McDonagh puts it). The Sinclair Solutions Consumer Rewards Program (the setting of the Multiplayer Game) may have only been with a limited number of people (he wants to sell it to Rapture's Citizens, not give it all away and Ryan who may have funded it likely had deadlines specified). Atlas's 'mass of an army' - really how big was it? When Splicers run quickly around the streets killing people, it doesn't take too many to disrupt everything (normal economy is gone, People afraid to go out on the Streets...). Possibly with Atlas gone, and no longer supplying them with ADAM, 'Rebel' Splicers wouldn't be using Plasmids for long. In any case, Atlas was (by BS1) pretty much all but beaten (Splicers nullified by the Pheromone Control thing supposedly) and he was mostly hiding out by the time Jack arrives. --- --- --- They Grade Games "On A Curve" : Faked deaths, secret identities and 'Luke I am your Father' ARE cliches. With a little better writing (before they create the expensive and time consuming game Assets) all the BioShocks could have been much better. It may simply have been a case of too many things being changed at the last minute (articles about the BS1 production describe that situation, and how they had to rush things after delays, and the differences in Infinite BS settings presented in the various Trailers showed significant changes). Unfortunately Infinite BS borrowed (recycled/copied) so many aspects from the earlier games that they were 'worse for wear' and a degredation in the game's logic and playability. BioShock Infinite gets a 'C' simply for showing up (in a game industry where safe and mediocre is the byword). --- --- --- Sinclair Deluxe Redevelopment: From "Hooverville" to a place affordable for the "working poor" -- lower rent for seemingly adequate apartment space (in the years Sinclair ran it) - where employed people could have the choice of buying more stuff or having kids or paying for advancement training, saving up money, etc.. with the money they saved from not being in other more expensive places. That bookseller (his wife has a audio diary) was living there, and that was a local shop (owner ?). The Deluxe's interior (fireplaces yet) were above a mediocre quality. With a RR Station to commute to work from, it might not have been a bad option for many people in Rapture (and Sinclair would plan on that particularly if he built it AFTER the original building boom was over and materials and labor were available at much lower cost.) The neighborhood looked quite better than any shanty town (and figure how much better it was in 1958 vs 1967) and with the local shops and the diner, etc... (Probably next to the unseen Sinclair Spirits was an unseen Sinclair Grocery Store). If they really wanted to besmear Sinclair as a slummy hardcase flophouse owner, a REAL lowest quality flophouse had just open bare rooms with rope hung between the walls, on which rows of packed in down-n-out customers hung standing (arms hung over the ropes) to sleep. That would have been a sight. (OR it could have looked like Fontaine's miserable Poor Houses.) --- --- --- Tank Cars in Fink Mfg Transport Yard... : A bit odd "GRWX" is a fake AAR (started 1934) railroad-like standard company designator (wholey unneeded in Columbia ... F.I.N.K. would have made more sense) and the tank car's mechanism (trucks particularly) is not american standard (looks more European style). In any case, where does the raw materials for whatever is in it come from (wherever that is, its hardly likely to come contained this way). Why need oil when you have 'Quantumz Power' or whatever - even the horse already seems powered that way. That rail siding upslope is too steep, unlikely for the 2 cart wheels to have traction enough. (OMG, he's complaining about Physics AGAIN!!!) But then ... Flying City ... Time Travel... God-like Interdimensional Abilities ... Invading Hello Kitties in Power Armor ... Quantum This and That, Anti-Gravity, etc.... Whats a little minor unreality for a shoot-em-up blast-fest game, hyped with supposed American Exceptionalism and illogical Religion and Whatever ???? --- --- --- Original Skyline (Trailers Showing what Never Happened For Game) : Looks like the 'rails' have a slot in the underside which should (like the long ago original Sky-lines) have a moving chain in it, that the boxcars hooked into to move them (the original Skyhook looked like a "hook" then also). Of course you couldn't change speed or direction like they have you able to do in the final game mechanics, but you did actually go somewhere on those original Skylines instead of in circles like the delivered game. --- --- The "Sky Hook" : Coulda hadda Chainsaw. But Nooooooooooooooo... There's something about being chased by a revving chainsaw (or being the one doing the chasing) which is just classic... --- --- Finger sandwiches' anyone ???? (Literally, as the insane denizens of 'Fontaines' turn to cannibalism to stay alive...) --- --- --- Boys of Silence - Possibly the Ugliest Hood-Ornament of All Time : Toto, I don't think we are in Kansas any more.... (with Quantum Weirdness Dorothy could have been here first...) Old Elizabeth might've made a good Wicked Witch of the West. --- --- --- Suchongs Strange Death : How exactly was the Big Daddy supposed to be standing to screw Suchong into the table like that ?? So Suchongs death was faked too ?? (Sullivan found what he was expected to find - Case Closed.) Suchong actually took off into a Tear to Paris ?? (Unfortunately it was one of those Time Travel ones and he was eaten by VelociRaptors). Atlas probably had Suchong on his list of "People to Eliminate", and Suchong probably realized that. --- --- --- Excuse - Cuz its 1912 : "The First Lady" etc... Still keeping the Zeppelin like shape when its the Quantum fairydust thingamabobs that make them float (heck whole buildings are seen shuttling about ....) Giant statues that look ready to crash down on you are all about the place (look at how the Statue of Liberty is designed for stability ). Can't really use the excuse "That's what people expected to see, and so THEY didn't want to frighten them with something that looks wrong......" -- with all the other weirdness going on about the place. (Tears should have had many of the fanatics committing suicide because "THE END TIMES ARE HERE !!!!!!!!" ) Look over the edge and ... nothing - a 15000 foot drop. Yeah, that's 'normal' ... But Such Pretty Scenery .... --- --- --- Pinky .... What is this? "Willow" all over again (except in reverse ?) : How exactly was it that only the pinky was cut off when its the right next to longer fingers? Having her whole hand get cut off would have been spookier, and an opportunity to put something more interesting than a thimble on it ... a bowling ball, chainsaw, a nasty shaped hook, a black gloved "Dr No" hand. The animators probably balked (as they did when less anthropomorphic NPCs were proposed for BioShock). --- --- --- Flash Fun : Many years ago there was a Flash presentation of 'Star Trek on Ice' which got lots of hits on the interwebs. http://www.mwmw.com/bbradley/SHG/geek/stream.html I suppose someone could do a similar lame FLASH animation with Big Daddies and Little Sisters (and Cohen) skating and doing pirouettes at Jack Frost's Icecapades, etc... --- --- --- Vigor Splicer ??? Vigor Junkie ??? : Where would such be found in Columbia, as they couldn't just wander the streets scaring the women and children ?? Escapees from the Columbia Asylum? (question then was how long had Vigors been 'on the market' or covertly available to have addicts to get into this bad a state ? These kind of effects would have to be hidden, or the result of some odd circumstances OR 'Vigors' would have not been allowed to be sold (and Fink wouldn't be making them any more). This isn't 'Let the Buyer Beware' Rapture (even with its overly-convenient plot holes), but a place where the Founders/Comstock would NOT LIKE the city being imperiled by dangerous monstrosities and undermining their authority. --- --- --- The Rapture/Bioshock Movie Concept Bathysphere : Looks more like a private 'sub' than a BS1 Metro Transit vehicle. Still missing lift hooks and/or flat bottom to allow raising unit out of water (its door doesn't clear the water level when its free-floating -- Big Daddies might not mind the thing is full of water, but normal people wouldn't like it.) --- --- --- Infinite BS, Story Timeframe is Rather Tight : Booker Born April 1874 ? Wounded Knee Dec 1890 (Booker 16 ?) Still working for the Pinkertons (contract issued) Jan 1892 (Booker not yet 18) Maybe just as a 'thug' hireling. Columbia launched 1893, its building probably started well before that (exposition opened May ended Oct) Booker is 20 yr old ?? And somehow despite his youth (in thinking, if not in appearance because of this 'aging' - whenever THAT is supposed to have happened -- already dealing with Luteces...) talked his way into important circles and finances and preaching/prophesying in the same short time ? So besides the Lutece and this absurdly rapid building of Columbia, there was a Depression on in 1893, so NO there wasn't any "money from Congress" (from taxpayer money... and stolen from all the other politicos private pet projects...). SO is it just 'go through a Tear and steal gold from another dimension's Fort Knox' ?? Way too much contrivance when its all made to fit dates they selected for certain elements without considering how absurdly close together they are (or what they conflict with) -- for anything that's plausible in the real world. Row a boat to the Lighthouse ... Why not row it to the Moon where the Turtle Princess is planning to destroy the Earth because the Luteces stole her magic crystal thimble ??? Frightening to think that THAT very well could have been the storyline - the way they seem to write for this game. (perhaps THAT would have been more plausible story ?...) --- --- --- alternates Alternate Universe Elizabeths : One with a hook in place of a hand ... a missing foot... Pegleg - makes dancing at the Battleship Bay Beach a bit less frolicksome. Head in a Belljar ... (Kept alive in a creepy B monster movie way.) Booker (now a dimensional god) with a hook for a hand (or a Fink Mfg. Robotic hand - more likely a Robotic Little Sister hand stolen from McClendon Robotics) --- --- "Must've taken the B-Grade Plasmid" ? : Heard from a doctor dressed Splicer in Medical Pavilion (BS1). Lesser quality Plasmids and Tonics were available in Rapture even before the Civil War started. Not everyone could afford to pay full price, and more than a few people used them despite the stories in the Newspapers about the bad effects many of them had on their users. It is likely Atlas fed such low quality ADAM to the 'poor' because he wanted more crazy people that Ryan would be forced to deal with, while HE 'the hero' denounced the Police State methods which had to be deployed to protect the majority of Rapture's citizens. --- --- Head Hunter Splicers : Of course the Heads still wear their masquerade masks... Why are there Duke and Dimwit puppet heads here ? Roleplay and fill out your collection.... Hmm not 'shrunken heads, but ones biggin'd - inflated like balloons ??? --- --- --- Thinker Computer - Last Minutes Before The Civil War : Your cheap laptop has hundreds or thousands of times the computing/processing power of what "The Thinker" would have been IF it was all vacuum tubes. Transistors were coming into use in the mid 50s, but even circuits using them (being only a magnitude better) could not simulate intelligence as seen. The big old clunky mainframes and advanced military computers which were 'cutting edge' (Real World) at that same time (and for decades later) were all quite insufficient for that task. The understanding of software likewise was still primitive. So The Thinker HAS to be based on some revolutionary technology, and not only on ideas from within Rapture (there were too many required aspects for Rapture's small technical population to have done so much by themselves and in so short a time). Theoretical work doesn't equal working prototypes (someone should have told Fink and Levine), as all it takes is just ONE part of the technologies failing to work to block the whole project (and there are MANY NEW technologies involved in something as complex as computers, and whole schools of understanding for Artificial Intelligence). Note - the Audio Diaries we are given imply Fontaine is still alive, and that Ryan thinks Porter is conspiring with Fontaine. So the whole 'mimic talking computer' is 'working' by middle 1958, and the required computer was built sufficiently to do that much (can't say what Wahl did/accomplished later in the years up until we saw it circa 1968). 1960 we saw the Security devices (Flybots in particular) which required wireless data communication and sufficient miniaturization (just to operate, even if they were controlled from a remote 'smarts' or earlier operators). That is the drastically decreased sized circuitry technology that would allow greatly increasing the computing capacity of a machine as large as the guts of the Thinker indicate (lining wall after wall in that last Minervas Den map level). --- --- --- ADAM Ethics : Ethically challenged Fontaine/Suchong/Tenenbaum - how many failures were there in the development of these genetic research/processes/technologies/products ? The Novel hinted at that issue (horrendous scenes of the early experimentation with even Fontaine being horrified by the results on human test subjects). How many 'Baby' Jacks did it take to get it right ? (you probably won't find a lab like in "Alien 3", as Fontaine would destroy the evidence to cover up his plot --- unless he is as wholly incompetent as portrayed in BaSx). The ADAM scientists/technicians might have got better at repairing/recovering the test subjects (maybe only to save on costs), but experiments likely would be fatal or worse for many. Glossed over in the story, with Tenenbaum's angst at seeing the warped humanity in Little Sisters, but no mention of how many must have died to create them and their precursor ADAM-generators in the first place (or how many OTHER humans her research consumed). Some evidence of the early ADAM research may yet be found in Rapture's ruins. --- --- --- More Crazy ... : Multiple Plasmids/Tonics might also conflict/compete (internally within the user) and maybe the consumer grades had features to minimize that (the 'can only have one Plasmid active' at once). ... Besides earlier Plasmids not necessarily being 'combat' drastic/strong - the 'BIC' lighter in BaS vs full Incinerate! and its upgrades. But as the civil war chaos increased, and Plasmid production got hectic, the production might have gotten more sloppy/streamlined (or they get unstable if they 'age', and Atlas being desperate may have been using a stash of out-of-date ADAM for his minions. The extra stability features might be left out -- if it limited production efficiency or required using more ADAM. Jack's growth seems to be the product of some process likely using alot of ADAM and other things (who knows what all else the experimental science in Rapture came up with). Plasmids_are_the_Paint ADAM sounds like it stimulates Stem Cells in the body (or reverts cells back to stem cells). It shouldn't be Stem Cells itself - as those are unformed cells, but with the host body's own original DNA (and that is certainly not something to be found in a Sea Slug - even if it (ick) ate human waste). Tonics/Plasmids are made when additional DNA/RNA is added to modify the bodies DNA cellular pattern and the ADAM creates the stem cells, which the DNA/RNA REforms into the needed physical changes/additions. Baby Jack possibly didn't likely have any additional DNA/RNA added, but was accelerated with his own DNA (thus no conflicting genetic material to cause the various sideeffects when the body reverts from added genetic patterns back to the original DNA). Fontaine could have expended ALOT of ADAM on his project. The acceleration may be a separate effect - WE get body tissue/structural changes really fast as part of the Tonics/Plasmid/HealingKits, so that component is probably in the ADAM stuff we add to ourselves in the game too. (Steinman's process sounds like local quick healing after he sliced/diced faces, and not some more complex DNA changes. There probably were a whole lot of other medical therapy processes of that type - including a Cancer Cure). SO Tenenbaum's ADAM Sickness Cure might be something to get all that garbage DNA/RNA out of a body, and then apply ALOT of ADAM to repair all the destruction/disruptions BACK to the persons original DNA (and with some acceleration component to minimize the time that half-finished changes exist in the body) --- --- Character-Level Based Equipment - a Defective Gameplay Design : In most MMORPG game Items become obsolete and your just throw them away (or sell them for a pittance to NPC shops). They don't get passed on to other players (rarely are they improved, and then not for very long). Likewise Fabrication, where effort (usually another long tedious grind) is put into developing the fabrication skill,which is then rewarded with making stuff little better than what everyone gets as part of the normal leveling missions (worse - player levels also go up so fast that the items are outclassed in no time at all). In some cases the fabrication skill is tied to the character level, and by the time items of a certain level can be made, that character has little use for them (besides usually being mundane anyway). --- --- Church of Sofia Scenes : I could see Sofia (Flashbacks) besides using the ADAM as her 'carrot' reward to faithful/obedient followers (versus her usual killing of people as her 'stick'). OR more importantly to her project - she thinks she needs 'memories' to put into her Utopian, so there should be scenes of 'church' members 'volunteering' to be channels for 'The Greater Good'-- more formal than the few Vent Shrine scenes we saw in BS2. ADAM being ceremonially applied for that purpose (singing hymns to the coming Lamb, etc.. All Hail Sofia ... THAT could be a very strange scene). If there was anything to this DNA Memory bunk, then imagine the Chaos Era nightmares and horrors which might be passed on to the 'Receiver'. No further reason is needed as to why Gilbert Alexander went insane (if its not just being packed full of ADAM, leading to massive mental and physical deformity). --- --- Sinclair Solutions Cosmetics : Bio-luminescence Technology (an opportunity for Sinclair and his reserach staff). Now that might have been interesting - the fad (well over by end of 1958) of glowey cosmetics were being resumed by Splicers -- so you see their odd faces in the really dark areas grimacing at you. Glowey paints also for the masks, Art, party gimmicks.... --- --- Programming of NPC Behavior for MMORPG : It is a simulation - its not Artificial Intelligence. It instead is a performance intended to give the Player(s) a sufficient perception and feeling of being in the that Rapture place. There are always limitations, but major improvements can be made well beyond what current games are willing to do. Attempts at consistency - Players come to expect that 'things should work the same/normally' and one thing you do shouldn't have incredible amounts of detail and interactions, when others are barely a static 3D box with a face texture on it just there to 'fill in'. Things should behave and react the way they are expected to (so players don't have to Double-Think everything, and the learning curve of game play will leverage real world 'X works like this' knowledge.) DO you want to be able to take samples of the fluids from the Splicers Bleeding Gums ?? Uh no, is that important to the gameplay? In the Solo games you are just passing through, and have the darkness and closed off doors to hide the false walls and to channel you between the few more detailed "canned" performances played out for you. Tedium is not a replacement for adventure. So lots of interesting stuff is the goal. --- --- --- "Jack - What is Reality ?" : The problem is IF you were conditioned, how would you know you broke out of it to see things as more 'reality' (which is normally based on your previous experience for how you recognize or value things - something Jack might have very little of). You might have to start with someone never 'conditioned', and not a ADAM Splicer, to at least avoid the usual ways you would be 'warped'. Discovery would just then be walking through things... But now there wouldn't be that interesting "Oh, None of it was Real" gimmick. Also, if you 'broke out' of your conditioning, what would you have left (how much did the conditioning wipe out, leaving gaps in how you perceive reality...) Simulate that in the game by having meaningless lights flash at you, and blank blocks fly at/past you could get kinda old after awhile. You destroy the conditioning or just 'realize' it may not be true (with flipping between reality and the 'filtered' view). The Little-Sister-Vision in BS2 had a little bit of that happening. Jack for example was only about 4 years old, and likely would have all of that time (and brain content) taken up by 'conditioning', and there wouldn't be much else in his head. Even as Jack WAS defined, it is a little too deep/complex for the developers to simulate having us see Rapture in a distorted way. It would be hard (and a Give-Away of the 'twist') simulating all the gaps for things Jack shouldn't have known. WE saw and knew about so many normal things in Rapture (vs what an imperfect ~4-year-old with accelerated conditioning could understand...). It might be justified via N-grams taken from someone else being impressed on him to help fill that void .. who knows. They had those very limited flashback 'photographs' to try to imply something. There's another Meta level thing that Jack might not even realize he is missing memories or even know to question it (We know we should have them but he might not - but WE also have no way of inquiring/remembering or sense of confusion in the game) and the few photos they flashed 'oddly' .. they were just basic filler for his cover. He was up on the Surface for 2 years (?) doing who knows what -- probably isolated because if someone talked to him or he saw too much it might wreck/disrupt their fragile/crude conditioning. I don't know how they might effectively communicate such things to players without having to whack them directly in the face with explanations. A bit deep for an FPS, and Verboten when there is that 'twist' to force the Player into. --- --- --- Care and Feeding of Your Team NPCs : They can "Go Postal" on you if they don't get stress release. Being their Fearless Leader, YOU have the responsibility to handle and prevent that. NPCs with attitude (as in they aren't rote following slaves) and they need incentives and motivational effort more than a few trinkets (Just don't go 'Sofia Lamb' on them.....). Of course you can just play solo or with other Players in your adventuring (or only work with your NPCs when you need the extra firepower or skills). It will take alot of Player Creator work to flesh out all the idiosyncrasies and personality variants (and Behavior Patterns) for all your possible Team NPC members. Be firm, but fair.... Voice responses - can share this interaction method with other NPCs in a general way Improving their Skill Sets will be of interest to you, yet many people have limitations which can take them only so far. (You yourself will have skill limitations -- so get over it already.... YOUR cleverness can find alternatives.) --- --- --- . . .